Adobe's Tom Hogarty talks about the extra features in the Lightroom 4 beta

We spoke to Tom Hogarty, Lightroom's Principal Product Manager, about the changes being previewed in the latest public beta of Adobe's processing workflow software. The beta version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 introduces a wide range of additional functions, tight integration with a third-party vendor and significant changes to some fundamental image editing tools. Hogarty explains how these features came about, their impact on Lightroom users and what Adobe hopes to learn from user feedback during the beta process.

Tom Hogarty, Principal Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

The headline features of Lightroom 4 include two extra modules (for book creation and geo-tagging of images), a soft proofing workflow, enhanced support for video files and a reworking of the 'Basic' panel's editing tools. We've examined these and other new additions in our Lightroom 4 Public Beta hands-on preview.

Hogarty says that the public beta process is valuable to Adobe which, 'gains a lot', from such a broad range of user feedback. While the company has a strong history of incorporating user feedback from public betas into the shipping version, each public beta serves a unique set of purposes, he explains. 'With Lightroom 4 we're confident we're headed in the right direction', Hogarty says. 'We're not introducing a brand new concept to users, as was the case with Lightroom 1, obviously. But we've added book creation and greater video support, and user reaction to them is important. We want to know if our choices work for our customers.'

This latest release introduces new functions on a scale not seen since Lightroom 2's introduction of localized editing tools and dual monitor support. Yet it was back in the development of Lightroom 3, with an eye towards these bigger ticket items that the Lightroom team took a critical look at the software's underpinnings. As Hogarty states, 'In developing Lightroom 3 our priority was to improve the underlying performance and image quality architecture of the software. These under-the-hood changes are what allowed us to provide the new features you see [in Lightroom 4].'

Basic panel revision

Hogarty notes that the earliest adopters of Lightroom were primarily professional photographers who needed little convincing to embrace a workflow-oriented way to manage and edit the hundreds of images they were generating on a daily basis. The growth of the software's user base, however, is coming from enthusiasts who have a wide range of competitors' offerings - both desktop and cloud-based - from which to choose.

One of the primary goals with Lightroom 4 was to simplify the user experience for new customers, Hogarty says. This can be seen in the overhaul of the Basic panel's tools that accompany the new processing options that come with the latest 2012 process version (PV). This decision grew out of internal feedback from Adobe's Revel (formerly Carousel) team as they explored Lightroom's interface to integrate it with their services. 'They questioned some tools whose use seemed obvious to us because we'd lived with them for seven years,' says Hogarty. As a result of these changes he believes that with Lightroom 4, users can get the image editing results they want more quickly.

Many of the Basic panel sliders familiar to users of Lightroom 3 (above)...

...have been changed in Lightroom 4, which now sets a global default value of 0.

Using PV2012 does require long-time Lightroom users to adjust their work habits to accommodate the revised tools. Hogarty feels confident, however, that current users will adapt to the changes relatively quickly. 'If you've been able to figure out the concepts of our old tools like Fill Light and Recovery (which have been replaced in Lightroom 4) it shouldn't take you long to become familiar with the new ones,' he states. He also notes that Lightroom 3 users are not required to update any of their images to PV2012. 'We are, and always have been flexible, by allowing users to maintain their existing process version,' he states. 'You can stick with PV2010 or even PV2003 until you're ready to switch. It is always our intention to support older process versions'.

His personal recommendation is that users migrating from Lightroom 3 begin using PV2012 initially on newly imported images. Then, once comfortable (and satisfied) with what the new tools offer, consider revisiting a select number of older images that can benefit from what PV2012 has to offer. In general, he argues that if your old images look fine as they are, it makes the most sense to leave them at their current process version.

Book and Map modules

Lightroom 4 introduces a Book module that offers template-based book layout and design and the ability to place your order directly with Blurb.

A Map module allows uses to tag their images with GPS data and then search for images based on location using a Google Maps-powered interface.

The book-creation module includes a direct order link to Blurb, the popular San Francisco-based book publisher, and represents Lightroom's tightest integration with an outside vendor. While Hogarty says Adobe is open to evaluating and exploring possible relationships with other providers, several reasons led to the decision to directly support Blurb as a book vendor. 'Blurb has a very knowledgeable support team that we feel is well suited to our users. Their physical proximity to us provides the opportunity of a tight feedback loop between the two companies. And of course the image quality during our internal testing was at a level we're comfortable with,' he says.

Adding support for geo-tagging of images and the ability to more easily search by location using the Map module may seem to be slightly ahead-of-the-curve, as GPS-enabled cameras currently make up a small fraction of the enthusiast market. Yet, as Hogarty points out, even professional photographers - notably photojournalists - are producing published work using smartphone cameras, which automatically store location data. He also sees signs in recent releases like the Canon S100, not to mention a number of Sony models like the SLT-A77, that built-in GPS capability is destined to become a standard feature in the not too distant future.

The big picture

With addition of the Book and Map modules, Lightroom's Module Picker is growing more crowded. This calls into question the expansion capability of Adobe's modular approach to the Lightroom interface, as there is clearly a limit to the number of additional modules that it can comfortably accommodate. Hogarty acknowledges this challenge, noting that, 'while we do now offer you the ability to hide modules, the current approach is not ideal and calls for a more elegant design solution. We may have to find a solution that incorporates higher level items [in the Module Picker] based on what you want to accomplish rather than a list of modules.'

One feature that some users had hoped to see in Lightroom 4 is face recognition, in which the software identifies specific faces in images and embeds this information as metadata for easier image searches. Hogarty says that when allocating resources for a new release, highest priority is given to features that benefit the greatest number of users. 'Face recognition is very important to some', he says, 'but irrelevant to others, leading to [internal] debates about what solutions are tackled in a release cycle.' Perhaps even more important, he notes there are serious privacy concerns about, 'the ability of software solutions to collect person-specific information.' He says that the challenges in implementing a face recognition workflow in Lightroom involve: 'privacy controls, integration with third party solutions like Facebook, tolerance for false positives - and the effort required to correct them - as well as the time required [by the user] to teach recognition tools.'

When asked about Lightroom's rivals, Hogarty sees a broad range of competitors beyond Aperture and Capture One, which notably includes Photoshop. And, as Lightroom continues to add capabilities that previously required a trip to Adobe's flagship image editing software, the obvious question is whether photographers still need Photoshop. While Hogarty stresses there are still things that can only be done in Photoshop, he also recognizes that for a majority of users' images Lightroom may indeed be the final destination. He notes that with his own images, 'I tend to work in Photoshop less often, but now I am happier when I do.'

Comments

11. When will the recovery slider NOT TO make a plain bad looking highlights with a HUGE PEAK of repeated tones in the highlights histogram?

12. When will contrast work from the middle of the histogram and not from the middle of the histogram box?

For those who also knows Aperture, you may notice how GOOD Aperture handles color separation when talking about temperature and color re-interpretation.

I used Lightroom since it came into existence, for many years, and for many purposes and styles, then I used it more for landscape photography, but sunsets tends to look FLAT when trying to separate the colors by using ANY color adjustment (WB, Split Toning, Camera Calibration). So for portrait much better not to use it because of the UNREALISTIC (over saturated reddish/orangeish) skin tones it gives.

So, since a year ago, I'm just using Aperture 3. It's also the way of cheaper.

So, for what is good Lightroom? For black and white. It really does good results.

I "loved it" so much that I've already deleted it from my computer. Why?

OK - if some want video the go ahead and make two - LR4 Photo and LR4 Video. But I don't want or need to stumble over video directed features. Actually, I'd prefer Adobe to spend it's R&D dollars on photos features instead - like for example a built in HDR function.

A big "no thanks" to commercial tie-ins with a book publisher. I have no interest - again, great if others do - but why can't that module at least be optional? Why not "hide" it if you want to? Because it's expected to generate "kick-back" cash for Adobe, that's why!!

Change the function of the basic adjustments? OK - why?? If Adobe can show us a strong and tangible benefit then fine but please don't just tell me that you did it and I'll get used to it. Thanks for nothing, again...

Oh, and if it turns out not to be possible to import already processed photos and to edit them further in LR4 it's a complete deal breaker. No, no, no...

1. There is nothing to "stumble over" with video support. If you don't import any video you will never call on the playback support engine.2. You can hide any module, including the Book module.3. You can stick with PV2010 controls for as long as you want4. Because this is a beta, you cannot upgrade an existing catalog. This is deliberate as a safety precaution. Final shipping versions always allow you to upgrade catalogs.

I use LR3, Photoshop CS5 and Expression Media, in a professional environment. EM can render previews in thumbnail view in real time and compare up to six images at a time, with individual or grouped pan and zoom--a far better way to compare similar shots, like in a portrait sitting. But the biggest disappointment is Lightroom's inability to open multiple files, as EM can do. No need to cram your whole catalog into one file. EM can easily copy/cut and paste between open databases and search among open catalogs. For my workflow, I make selections in EM and edit in LR. On to Photoshop for additional retouching, HDR and compositing. There is no killer app.

Isn't there a fatal flaw in the inability to use Lightroom 4 on our old Lightroom 3 databases? Ideally I'd like to migrate my LR3 database to LR4 but this is not allowed. So these are the problems:

1. Having to boot up LR3 for some photos and LR4 on other photos will end up being a royal pain. Switching between programs all the time?

2. And what if I move photos and folders (which are referenced by LR3) around in LR4 and go back to LR3 - LR3 will go out of its mind not knowing what happened, and I will have to spend time repairing the LR3 catalog regarding photo locations.

This is potentially a real mess. The only way around it is to strictly use LR4 for new photos in new directory locations, and NEVER mess with your LR3 photos or your LR3 directory and photo locations using LR4. And vice versa.

I thought I read somewhere that the slider concepts are incompatible between version 3 and 4 so that even if you will be able to upgrade your catalog to version 4, you can't re-edit your old photos - or your old photos go haywire/undefined because e.g. there is no more fill light slider in 4 for example.

So what do you do - switch back to Lightroom 3 - oops I just upgraded my catalog and Lightroom 3 can't read it.

You shouldn't have to worry, LR3 has the option to use the LR2 processing version etc. as well, I am sure LR4 will let you use and edit photos using the older processing versions too, only new ones will automatically use the latest version, old photos will work like before.

(I haven't used LR4 beta so far, but I'd be very surprised if they didn't handle it that way).

An indispensable upgrade for me, for the changes to the basic module and the adjustment brushes. The much improved capacity to extract detail from shadows and highlights will reduce my need for HDR bracketing. I also look forward to playing with the improved video module and with geotagging.

Face recognition that worked would be nice in the future, but face recognition as implemented by the competition (and yes, I have tried them) would be a waste of time.

Tried and liked the changes in the Basic Module; finer control in adjusting the shadow areas and highlights with the white & black sliders added. Also enjoyed using the extra controls on the brush etc. tools.

There's a lot of reason to believe Exposure changed. The available materials say it was combined with Brightness and has some clipping intelligence in it. It is not a straight change of numerical value, that is why falconeyes is concerned. But the engineers are on the public forum and I remember seeing at least one thread talking about a concern like yours. You should ask there.

Good call. In fact, in the main article text they talk about the module picker getting crowded. Consolidation into major areas of function with sub-modules would make more sense. Geotagging really should be a sub-set/function of cataloging. Book-making and print should probably be together. Web and Slideshow could probably do likewise.

Don't agree. Have you actually looked at the software? It doesn't say "Blurb" in the picker, it says "Book," and if you go into it, it could clearly accommodate multiple vendor plug-ins in the future. Blurb can't possibly be the only one in there forever.

I for one do not want the book features inside the Print module, which is already crowded on both sides with options I have to sort through. Books need to stay in some other module, because I'm not going to be using them right away. But I do need to print.

I'm really struggling to understand the justification for a book module given the response to the face recognition issue: "'Face recognition is very important to some', he says, 'but irrelevant to others.'" So, kind of like a book module then?

I'd be shocked if making expensive photo books is more popular and of greater interest than face recognition, which can be useful to *anyone* who takes photos of people Anyone who says they have no use for it is likely to change their mind if they get a chance to work with a *well-implemented* system.

If Adobe is thinking about professionals and their cell phone pics with the geotagging module, clearly they're not so concerned with targeting a minority of the market. How many people are really editing their *cell phone* pics in LR?

My guess is they made a deal with Blurb, let's say 15% of all revenue from books made in LR4. Blurb gets promotion, Adobe gets extra cash. We get a module useful only to a minority of people. Win!

I think you're misconstruing his meaning. He's saying that a book module is significantly less useful a less people than facial recognition. I use Lightroom for all my RAW developing but occasionally import some images into iPhoto for things like calendars and cards. iPhoto's Facial Recognition is "good enough" to make it useful for me. I already tag each of my photos in Lightroom with my family members' names, but that's inconvenient and tiresome.

I'd want Facial Recognition way way higher on the priority scale than a book module. But Adobe is obviously making money off book publisher partnerships.

Their original audience is professional and advanced amateur photographers. I'm more likely to produce a book for my clients than to spend time tagging the names of all of their guests at a wedding or event, the first situations that seem likely to benefit from F/R. Producing a book layout within LR is much easier than InDesign, especially if the client wants to play "what if..." with the layout. Having said that, if a client wants me to tag all of their guests' faces, a reliable algorithm would save them a lot of money (and save me time) - I don't get a sense that the technology is there yet. I recognize that for some F/R is more important. For my work, Book is a better feature.

I expected to scroll down to read 9/10 comments complaining about the fact that this upgrade is focused on the book creation module, but nary a word! I guess I am the only one disappointed that book creation was the big highlight for this version?

I have a powerful 12GB machine for the need of CG in cinema. Many CG studios still use Windows XP 64 because it saves memory for rendering 3D siquences. We don''t need allocating extra processes in memory in Windows 7 to work faster, because it is not faster. It is slower. Windows XP 64 is the best Win OS ever.

I've experienced strange jumpy behaviour from the highlights slider, but I guess this is a Beta Bug.

Having all sliders to default at 0 is great. But I found the old ones to be more self explanatory. It always felt to me like "Fill Light and Recovery do local contrast adjustment with the possibility of strange results, so be carefull". The new ones work globally and locally, but who really knows. And I'm not really convinced that the possibility of odd results is gone now :) Another UI problem to me now is that the 4 sliders seem to be redundant with the curves panel (which technically they are not, of course, but they look like it).

Regarding books: In case I wasn't just blind and there really is no way how to set custom page sizes, this tool is rather pointless. Which is sad, because otherwise it would have been absolutely brilliant.

Still missing on the UI front: Borderless display for developing and slideshow and more/customizable keyboard shortcuts. Plus a way to customize slider increments. I really don't need anything finer than half stop and 10% steps, maybe with the exception of CA controll. Which, very much to my annoyance, can't be fine-tuned manually anymore anyway.

Still a great piece of software, but as an update, I really don't know if it's worth it.

Having looked at the beta, the improvements seem worthwhile but not exciting. I do feel that Slideshow should have been upgraded to play video clips. The competition can do this and it is a real need for many pros and amateurs who want to showcase their work or simply play their holiday pics and video for friends. Adding Books is less important; typically a book involves fewer images than a slideshow so the process of exporting into another prog is easier than doing it with the larger amounts of material often needed for slideshows. Put simply, I see books and GPS as bloatware and the lack of video in Slideshow as a basic failing.

For me this is a dealbreaker, I'm on LR2 and was hoping LR4 would fix it so I might now go to Aperture.

Don't care about books, geo and new buttons. The soft proofing was missing for a rediculous time now. I still cannot believe that they needed 4 versions to get it over from photoshop. But is it worth an upgrade? Unfortunately Adobe does not support newer cameras with older LR versions. So next cam will force me into buying anyway - as always.

I am rather surprised about all the complaints here. I use LR since version 2 and I find it as an amazing tool. I have a 3 years old desktop, just switched from 32-bit XP to 64-bit Win 7 (I should have done that a long time ago) and I have never had problem with the speed. Of course it is not instantaneous, but come on, I have tens of thousands of files in my catalogs and processing 21 MP RAW files. Actually since I moved the system and the LR catalogs on SSD I gained 2-3x speed in the Catalog module. I like the RAW-converter, the photo catalog, the processing tools and the export functions. Yes, I can also dream of improvements fulfilling my own special needs, but generally I am very satisfied with the upgrades and I already find LR an irreplaceable tool (as I heard Aperture would do, but I have no experience there), as it does pretty much everything I need (now I use PS only for heavy retouching on 1-2% of my photos).I will definitely switch to LR 4 with time.

NOT Supporting Windows XP, Windows XP 64. VERY NICE! I do have very powerful computer, but I HATE WINDOWS 7 for using 1GB of RAM, instead of 250MB as Windows XP 64. Neither of my 12 GB of RAM are unnecessary.I feel that Adobe and Microsoft both force us to use this awful and stupid Windows 7. There are much more complicated software, supporting Windows XP 64.

Do you have any clue how windows 7 memory management works? By your comment you are clueless if you believe windows XP works better than w7. If you really have 12gb of ram and a very "powerful" computer you are wasting it with xp and specially with the pos of x64 they did with XP.

Windows is allocating more processes to your "12gb" of ram to make it faster, in XP they are allocated to the memory pool you have in the HDD which is slower.

So I would recommend you learn a bit how your OS works instead of spouting non-sense in the internet.

You don't really need 12 GB of ram. I have 4 GB of ram, and if I open every one of the most power sucking apps at once, such as photoshopCS4 ,lightroom 3.6,Photoshop elements,canon zoom browser,DPP,Picasa,Nero microsoft works,WMP,internet explorer and AOL browser I still have 2.75 left. So IMO12GB is a huge overkill.

Although it does not make sense running such a powerful machine on XP, he still got his point. Really how hard does it take to make a win7's software to run on XP, considering how many users out there still has a decent machine.

Are you sure? I used to run Windows 7 with 8 gig of RAM, then with motherboard issues had to drop to 4 gig. I'm not saying it was bad, but you could tell the difference. I know that my Lightroom often uses 2 gig on its own. Before long with 4 gig you're swapping to the HDD. When that PC broke, I just picked 16gb as I still relate prices to 1993 and think 'oh that's cheap, I remember when 1mb of RAM was £300'

Windows 7 works fine with little memory. I've run enterprise grade engineering SW (and FF 3.6 at the same time) in a 384MB (!) Win7 VM without problems. At this point Win7 uses less memory than OS X 10.7 (my main OS)

I just tried LR4 beta x64 version. It keeps crashing that is much worse than LR3. Sure it's a beta version but I am unable to effectively test features because of this constant crashing. Frequent crashing is my #1 complaint on LR3, a pain to use but I don't have a better option as I am so used to it.

Update 10 mins later: actually the constant crashing resulted from using old LR3 presets. Once I start using LR4 new bars it's much better. I love those new bars wow, they are reverse from LR3, LOL.

The slider controls are way too small. We want a faster workflow. Instead of having to blink our way to the required control, it will be good if it's a little more prominent. Also shading the control groups in different colors (mildly varying and soft) will help us get to the controls faster.

It would be nice if photoshop offered a mixer with sliders which can be programmed for sliders of users choice and sold it separately. We would pay any money for such piece of hardware. It will save so much time and the workflow would take minutes instead of countless hours and I am getting a carpal tunnel syndrome unnecessarily. Come on adobe give us a berringer mixer..

Hmm, there are midi control panels with knobs and sliders. For example, I have a Novation Nocturne panel with Automap software. It makes sense with all these controls for Lightroom to support Midi control panels.

I hope Adobe concentrates on improving raw processing. It's pretty good now and hopefully it gets better over time. Especially in the area of noise reduction and highlight/shadow detail recovery.

I could care less about it's cataloging interface. In fact the catalog stuff gets in the way more than it helps. Just let me load a file or a folder or a selections of files from a folder and then "develop" them into a folder of my choice. That's all I need for image management. Folders are my catalog.

I agree --after years of working with the tree-based file-systems I find it hard to wrap my head around the import interface, I suspect we are in the minority and will have to adapt. I'm very happy with the results though.

Once you get past the "directory" mindset you find out how powerful the "metadata" mindset is. Or more accurately you get a gradual realization of how much folders have held you back all these years. There is a reason all media - music, photos, videos - are dropping folders for metadata.

As for worrying about software losing track, if the keywords are in the images they are IPTC standard so a wide range of software, including the Mac Finder itself, can immediately retrieve images independent of (some would say despite the obstructing levels of the) folder hierarchy.

Lightroom does a pretty good job of letting you keep your files organized by directory on the filesystem. I routinely move folders around and then when I want to re-access those files I just use the "locate original" (or whatever that menu is called) and point it to where I moved the file and it relinks the edits / metadata with the files.

(Try doing moving files around in the filesystem with aperture and you are in for a world of pain.)

Actually, Aperture handles moved originals in a similar fashion - select "Locate Referenced Files" and point to the new location. In fact, if you move the files in the finder while Aperture is running, it will track the files to their new destination. No pointing required. So much for the "world of pain."

If you already organise your files into shoots based on coherent projects, then the 'metadata mindset' is largely a waste of time. If you take a whole bunch of snaps of different things, then organising through metadata can be useful ... *if* you've spent the time required to input meaningful keywords on every photo so you can later dredge up every snap you've made with Uncle Pete in it.

Although I do use the cataloging interface (not to its fullest) and appreciate it being there, I also use folder hierarchy and naming to maintain basic organization. I agree that it would be nice to be able to either disable or simply bypass the "import" step and open an image to "develop" using LR's tools, just like you can in Photoshop. If they're going to provide additional controls beyond PS (and they do, although granted much is duplicated from the RAW developer in PS), then it would be nice to make them accessible without cataloging.

Photoshop was never able to make my raw files look as good as they should look. I use DPP to color correct render raw data into tiffs and after I use PS to do further post production. Imho it saves me a lot of time and grief and I can look into my clients eyes knowing that they received the best juice that is possible.

For all u dreamers don't count on adobe to render ur files better in the next version, that is not what photoshop is for.

linden, I don't know about now but I sincerely doubt your findings. I used to own a Nikon D50 and I do remember there was a fued between nikon and photoshop. My nikon files looked worlds better when I processed them in Capture. I don't think anything changed since then but I could be wrong. I have been wrong before. It's just that with Canon files I still find that photoshop's converter does an inferior job and see no reason for photoshop to jump the nikon's wagon all of the sudden without doing something about canon.

Nikon Capture was the absolute best choice for processing Nikon NEF files. LR2 was very poor with them, removing any fine detail and muddying the colours. LR3 was closer, but still not there until the release of the V4 profiles by Eric Chan. The initial preview of my NEF files is now exactly the same as it is in VNX2 - CNX2 and the workflow is far easier.With the release of LR4 that processing again has a slight improvement, making LR my definite first choice of Raw processors.

I can't wait for lightroom 5. I hope they will be adding an option of creating your own templates for books with added features such as making borders and saving the work as jpegs. Lets cheer for the next version soon to come with book and slideshow upgrade, otherwise they are heading in the right direction and soon I will stop regretting getting rid of my macbook pro.

I'm hoping that someone will create more templates for books as well. I make and print my own using 8.5 X 11 paper. I think it is possible to make your own by duplicating the existing templates and editing them in a text processor, but it looks to be very time consuming. If I have 40 spare hours, I could likely do some of them.

What I don't really understand is the version numbering of LR. The minor upgrades only seems to be for adding new cameras to the RAW converter and bug fixes. The Major upgrades (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, ..) are for adding little quirks in functionality and user interface.

What I would really appreciate as a Major Upgrade is the ability of "Virtual Layers". Photoshop Layers are pixel (or vector) oriented, the LR Virtual Layers however could only exist as metadata in the DB. Think about new possibilities: more precise local adjustments and retouching, Adding graphical info (like text, lines, arrows, etc.) to the Image, HDR, Panoramic Stitching, Creating Title Slides for Slide Show, etc.

Furthermore I'm interested why LR contains RAW converters for tons of Cameras, while each LR User just need a couple of them. Wouldn't it be more elegant to offer them as a kind of PlugIn (with automatic download & upgrade)?

for all that there is photoshop, or not???why adobe would give you for 200$ what you will have to pay to have in PS?they would kill PS that way, and unless they are damn stupid they wont give you all that in LR!as simple as that.

You sort of have virtual layers now. A Photoshop layer has adjustments and an editable mask. That's what you have when you add an adjustment/gradient pin in LR: An adjustment and an editable mask, for each individual pin. Each pin is already like a virtual layer, and it definitely exists only in the metadata.

@DioCanon: Although the end result of a single Image might be the same with Photoshop, Photoshop has some disadvantages compared with LR:- No Workflow with PS, many files messing up the storage.- PS is Pixel oriented. Every new Layer will expand File Size a lot. I've a too many TIFFs and PSDs bigger than 1GB. In LR this problem could be solved with "Virtual Layers" which will store graphical data as metadata in the database.

I wouldn't hesitate to pay more for LR when functionality would be way more advanced.

On the other hand: Adobe should be able now to create availability of "virtual layers" in PS, with a new FileType.

@greybalanced: Yes, you're completely right. But this is just the beginning. In this way there a so much more possibilities imaginable. Adobe, comon, please extend the the functionality of this great Tool more! Even if the Price will raise.

I would pay extra cash for an improved Slideshow module. Adobe, please take a look at Aperture Slideshow capabilities!

Editable time axis, multiple sound tracks, editable "ken burn" transition which makes the viewer eye leading process a treat. Exporting as HD video with the popular H.264 kodek makes this a must. I do 90% of my work in LR, but for the slideshow I need to keep (otherwise rarely used) Aperture.

Ah one more thing - pretty please work out a network usage of the catalogue DB - I want to do a rough selection + ranking on my Mac in the comfort of living room. I do editing and color processing on my primary WS (which happen to be running Win7) with a calibrated monitor. I would love to be able to move seamlessly between these working environments with one LR catalogue without tedious workarounds...

Ah, Dio buddy, rico there does 90% of his image work on Lightroom. Hardly an "Apple boy." And, like about 90% of the other posters on this forum, he's wishing for new features. Why are you being so disrespectful toward him?

Dio,On the contrary, I'm a huge Lightroom proponent - I'm their customer since version 1 and I love it for what it allows me to do.

That however doesn't mean Lightroom cannot be improved. I'm showcasing my work regularly as multimedia slideshows where images mix with recorded sound and short video clips. I would love to go with Lightroom all the way, but alas their Slideshow module is a joke so far.

Truth be told, I have not really used Aperture for anything else but slideshow creation - I find the rest of their UI counter-intuitive, but since they dropped the price I could afford to get it as a "dedicated slideshow tool".

Companies should be able to listen to the needs of their customers as there is a clear path to innovation.

I'd like to add a vote for more speed. It is rather odd that the photoshop guys have implemented GPU acceleration and the lighroom guys down the hall are still producing software that sucks wind. Guys, this is a graphics application, we all have graphics cards that are great at image manipulation. Let's use this spare horsepower for Lightroom!

It isn't the LR database that's slow. The Lightroom Queen demonstrated that putting the database on SSD does nothing. It's the entire software stack that suffers from slow response. The Corel/Bibble guys succeeded in producing fast editing through mult-threading. It can't be that hard.

And yet Bibble and AfterShot Pro are actually slower (or certainly feel that way) in actual use. I bought the Bibble multithreading boast hook, line, and sinker, but it doesn't seem to actually be faster than LR in my experience, at least not at loading and displaying images. Some editing operations may be a tad faster, but every time I go to preview them at full resolution ASP (which is basically Bibble) sits there for several seconds before finally showing it at 100%. So if nothing else experiences vary.

I agree the LR database is slow, in both workflow and navigation. However, it's important to realize that LR is *not* a RAW converter. It doesn't read RAW and spit out a final file. In fact, that's contrary to its concept.

Rather, LR is a RAW workflow. There is no output file unless you need to move images out of LR entirely. You carry around processing instructions with the RAW and move freely between modules without ever doing something destructive like flattening your edits.

This workflow requires holding your processing instructions alongside each file. DNG does this natively. Other types require either keeping this info in the LR catalog or exporting a sidecar file (which can get separated from its associated RAW).

So, removing LR's catalog entirely might not make sense unless files are converted to DNG first or have sidecar files hanging around. A lighter-weight catalog that builds on the fly without an explicit import step would be the preferred solution.

Sounds like some really good new features; however, I'm disappointed LR4 will not run on Windows XP. With web statistics showing 35-40% of Windows users still running XP, I would think that would make a case to not abandon us XP users. Many of us XP users cannot afford to upgrade to Windows 7 just to run LR4, so I guess our only upgrade path is a competitor's product!

No it does not make a case at all. Your figures are for windows users overall. Lightroom XP users are a much lower percentage than that. It is so small Adobe said it is no longer viable to do the testing that would be required for all the variations of XP you have to test for. On top of this XP does not even support all of the video features in Lightroom. To support XP they have stated it would hold Lightroom development back.

You guys keep bringing up that 35-40% of users still using XP. The fact of the matter is that off those 40% xp users, 95% of them are enterprise users that haven't migrated to W7 yet just because they have so many systems and securities based on that infrastructure.

At work we still use XP, but at home I (and everyone I know from the 300 people at work) use W7.

The thing about software like LR is that its hardware system requirements alone justify a machine new enough that it ought to have come with at least Vista, if not Win7. XP is 10+ years old now. If you're running LR on a 10 year old machine, you're a fool, and if you're running XP on hardware newer than 5 years old you're almost certainly not getting the most out of it with that OS.

As others have said, the majority of those reported XP users are either businesses doing office work who upgrade in big cycles, or people just browsing the web with their computers who don't need to upgrade. Most of those people are probably running computers that wouldn't handle LR well anyway. Not to mention that support for XP is due to end relatively soon as well.

Yes, it's just for windows users overall, but that's a LOT of users Adobe will not be able to market new sales and upgrades to. I wouldn't think Adobe could afford to ignore that big of a percentage in the Windows market, but looks like I was wrong. Someone said that's just corporate users still on XP, but I work for a large corporation and we use Win 7, as do a lot of other corporations, so I don't buy that argument. But even if that dropped to 20%, that's still a huge market to ignore.

I understand Adobe wants to use some new video features in Win 7, but what do they think we've been doing the last several years with our DSLR videos, waiting for LR4 ? No, we're using products that support Vista, Win 7, AND XP.

But, that's the way business works - Adobe makes a business decision to not support XP any longer, I make a business decision to not support Adobe any longer.

I'm an XP user for some time into the future, so I'll be sticking with LR3. Disappointed (and surprised) that Adobe took this path. I hope they don't do the same for CS6, or I'll remain on CS3. Too much time invested in an extremely stable Windows OS to waste time moving to Windows 7. I know I can get my work done now, and that's exactly what I need. There is a reason so many users and corporate IT departments have stayed with XP. It's really too bad Microsoft can't get it right. It's also too bad that Adobe seems to be following Apple's 'Flash won't run on my OS' tack. It's not good to leave a large section of your users behind. Canon alienated a lot of shooters when it changed its mount to EOS, which is when I sold all my gear and glass and bought Nikon. Brand loyalty is a fickle business, and too few companies pay enough attention to it because of so called 'technical' issues.

There IS a reason many people have stayed with XP: they don't know any better.

Corporations can be forgiven their cautious natures (up to a point), but it's frankly ludicrous for individuals to expect software companies to create modern software for an 11-year old OS. Period.

Microsoft did get Windows 7 right. It's more stable and in many cases faster than XP given the same hardware. Sticking with XP is just ignorant, and to the extent that it affects development decisions, loudly disclaiming companies that no longer support XP holds back the software industry.

Adobe should offer a "lighter" version of LR. Many people do not want, and actually find it annoying and resource consuming to have a RAW converter with cataloging functions. I would pay a premium to free my computer of all those modules. Let us have a RAW converter/editor without even the need to "import" the files and without all those gimmicks, and offer a bloated version of LR for those who want it. Such a lean product is going the photoshop way, sad.

I agree - the asset management aspects are pretty much single user. Even for home use these days, let alone professional use, a networked database, shareable across multiple users, would be very useful.

I also would really like to see Adobe work on their Asset Management. I really dislike the fact that "Collections" are separate physically from the main Library panel. In Aperture, the "Albums" (same thing as Collections)can reside inside a "Project" (just a folder with original images) and collect images only from that one folder, or an Album can sit inside a collecting folder with several projects and collect images from all of them, or it can sit at the root level and collect from the whole Library. Yes, I know you can set up the rules for Collections so they emulate this, but putting them physically in the Library is much more intuitive and allows you to find things and set things up fast. Some of the terminology they use in setting up the Catalogs is confusing as well.

I expected to scroll down to read 9/10 comments complaining about the fact that this upgrade is focused on the book creation module, but nary a word! I guess I am the only one disappointed that book creation was the big highlight for this version?

Did you read the Adobe activation fine print? Holy cow! You need to give them free access to your workstation via the internet. And what if your workstation doesn't have internet? Or what if you need to reformat your HD?..... or get a new motherboard?

No, ACR is not what I want. It comes at several times the price, and 1GB+ junk that I do not want to install on my computer. I like LR and do not want ACD, etc.

I am not a fan of the non-destructive editing. First, LR is a lousy viewer, of low quality and not user friendly. It takes too many clicks to start browsing images in full screen mode, for example. What you see is actually JPEGS hidden in the cache - why not have them in a folder that anybody can use. I use other converters, too, and share pictures with friends and family. My computer is fast enough for LR3 but I am afraid that LR4 will slow it down.

maxnimo what are you talking about? Are they adding activation to LR4? Because no version of LR so far has activation. For the apps that do, lacking Internet is not a problem. If you don't have Internet for Photoshops, for example, you have 30 days, and if you still don't have Internet for 30 days in a row, you can phone them to activate. Once activated, Internet is not really needed for anything except updates...you could go out into the bush for 3 years with no Internet and have no problem.

Tried LR4 .. came up with some errors ..while switching modules..running on mac-lion. The develop controls do appeal in that they are centered to zero with a plus or minus movement..liked the results - so far.

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